NASA has a job opening for a Planetary Protection Officer, or PPO. The post involves defending the Earth against potential incursions of alien life while simultaneously protecting other moons and planets from life on ours.

New research suggests that Mercury is covered in a layer of graphite, or carbon. This would account for its low albedo, but it’s a unique feature compared with the rest of the rocky planets and moons in the solar system.

A new exoplanet discovered in orbit around Wolf 1061 appears to sit squarely in its habitable zone — but the conditions thought to exist around such stars make it difficult for habitable planets to exist. Will Wolf 1061c prove such theories correct or not?

Five years ago, Japan’s Akatsuki probe missed its Venus rendezvous and spun away from the planet into its own orbit around the sun. This week, the probe got another chance to enter orbit and the early results look quite positive.